


Like An Eclipse We Embrace

by nightmaresinwintah



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Again, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Death But Not Really, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Reincarnation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, War, and nothing can keep them apart, as per, as they were the sun and moon respectively, but although they die they die together and then get reincaranted so, here, howlies are mentioned, i feel like i didn't do them justice but this is STUCKY CENTRIC IM SORRY, listen basically, okay im so shit at tags just, please, steve and bucky's love story is reimagined, stucky au, sun-and-moon, they're stubborn assholes, this is my offering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 22:33:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15471576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmaresinwintah/pseuds/nightmaresinwintah
Summary: In the moon and sun, Gods are found. Men look up to them everyday and everynight. On Earth, Men are found. The Gods look down on them everyday and everynight. Every now and then, Gods and Men mingle and the moon and sun fall in love all over again.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> okay so nothing can make up for the lack of effort i put into the tags but hey here we are. i forgot about writing for a year and then resurfaced and now the air i am breathing is 1k words a day and i am LIVING. here. i tried with this. THANK YOU to [flightyrock](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flightyrock/pseuds/flightyrock) from the Stucky AU Big Bang Slack for looking over this for me and picking out many errors and plot holes and generally being really cool thank you thank you thank you! speaking of the Stuck AU BB.....that fic is coming along nicely. i'm excited. many many writers already have SUCH GOOD FICS FUCK i can't wait. 
> 
> anyways. here. a good time. 
> 
> oh! theme song for this is Ocean by John Butler. amazing.

There are those times when the moon crosses into the path of the sun, and those on Earth look up into the sky and see an eclipse. There are countless stories of Nova and Luna, of Sun and Moon, of the incarnations of these Gods - Helios and Selene, Ra and Hathor, Tama-nui-te-ra and Rongo-motu, Maasai and Mawu and countless more across the globe. The sun lights up the Earth every day, stretching over the land humans dwell on, nourishing them and every other living creature. The moon drifts across the sky every night, looking down upon on each being; they gaze up in awe as it pulls the sea to and fro. 

In this story, Sun and Moon - as they have countless time throughout history - have decided to return to Earth as another incarnation. They have been apart for far too long, dancing across their parts of the galaxy, watching each other with not-so quiet wanting. 

In this story, as the sun rises in the east and the moon sets in the west, the two old lovers sigh, sending stardust spiralling towards Earth. At the same time, two soon-to-be mothers get the first pains of labour and cry out, hands flying to their swollen stomachs. Sarah Rogers groans, a hot flush sweeping over her body. Winifred Barnes gasps, a cold sweat breaking out over her skin. 

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes come screaming into the world at the same time - at dusk, just as the moon comes up over the east and the sun sets in the west.


	2. Part One - Brooklyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *coughing* listen /listen/ i love steve and bucky but they are so stubborn and thick-headed sometimes why don't they just ever chill

Childhood is filled with the burning heat of the sun thrumming through Steve’s veins, sending him wild with a passion that is scarcely seen in a heart so young. Sarah Rogers knows that her son is not born of this world. She does not know who or what he was, but she loves him more fiercely that she ever thought she could. 

By the time her son is old enough to go wandering the streets he is getting into fights. She cleans up more bloodied knuckles and split lips than she can bare to think about. Steve’s skin is hot to the touch after these fights, like he is burning from the inside out. His eyes are alight, glowing with a warm amber light, enveloping the blue. 

When Steve gets sick - really sick, not just the endless colds, coughs and shortness of breath - Sarah fears for his life. He lays in bed, sweating through the sheets and the covers. The room is almost unbearable to be in, sweltering heat making the very air heavy and sticky. Steve himself takes turns writhing and sleeping in fits. It’s the night of the full moon when Sarah sits down beside her son and takes his hand in hers. 

“Steve, what do you need?” she asks him. 

His eyes, feverish and glazed, stare up at her. His chapped lips part and he shudders, a wave of heat plowing through the room. “Can you open the curtains?” he croaks. 

Sarah does so, letting the light of the moon fall on her sons face. She watches tension seep out of him, feels the temperature of the room kick down a few notches. Steve sighs, before seeming to breathe in the moon's glow. Sarah sits beside him, watches him sleep. The next day when the sun pours over Steve’s sleeping form, he wakes with clarity in his eyes. 

It’s not the last time he gets that sick, but now Sarah knows will help.

On days where Sarah has a rare break from work, she takes Steve to the park and they make a small picnic. They sit on the grass and talk about the birds and the trees. Steve asks about the sun, the moon, the sky. Sarah tells him what she knows, but she gets the feeling that Steve knows much more than her. When they tire of talking, Steve lays back in the heat of the sun and sleeps. 

The weeks after these days are filled with a sort of calm, where Steve’s breathing comes easier and his never ending aches and pains seem to ease a bit. 

Sarah takes a moment each night to send a thought to the sun, thanking it. She has a niggling feeling that her son is filled with the glowing rays, born from it, if not incarnated from it. 

*

Not far from where Sarah is raising her son, Winifred Barnes is too caring for her first born. James Barnes, yet to be nicknamed ‘Bucky’, is born from the moon - his very bones echo the moon’s gravitational pull. He spends countless hours down by the docks, staring out into the water before running all the way home as the moon comes up over the horizon and he can practically hear his mother yelling for him.

The first time he runs into another group of kids his age they invite him to join in on a game of stick-ball. He learns quickly what it’s all about and spends day after day under the baking summer sun, hitting a ball with the neighbourhood youth. When he heads home at night he can’t help but notice the itch under his skin, the ache in his bones. 

It’s when the ache and itch get so bad that he makes his excuses and goes down to the docks to watch the water and wait for the moon to come up. 

Winifred watches her son and his strange habits, watches him wince at bright sunlight and struggle to have much energy to do things in the blistering heat. She watches him try - she watches him keeping up with the other kids, oh, sure - but then she sees him come alive at night. It’s when the moon is at its brightest that she sees her son glowing with unspent energy. 

She takes him for a walk one night under the guise of her being unable to sleep. She leaves her husband sleeping. Her son is only too eager to come out with her and race around the streets. She has to keep a firm hold on his hand for most of the way to keep him from practically climbing the buildings. He is full to the brim with energy, the moonlight making him glow. 

She lets him lead, observes the way he doesn’t seem to tire, despite being tired all day. 

They end up in one of the more run-down neighbourhoods and this is where her son seems to slow down. He’s gazing around like he’s looking for something, or expecting something to jump out at them. It almost makes Winifred’s skin crawl, but she stays calm. 

“Should we go back home now, James? The sun will be up soon,” she says. It’s true - the sky is already growing lighter. 

James looks up at her with round eyes, chewing on his lips, clearly trying to decide. He still doesn’t look tired, though his energy had slowly gone down at morning drew closer. “Yes, ma, let’s go and make pa some breakfast before he wakes!” he gasped, excited by the idea. 

She smiled and turned them around to go back the way they came. Before James follows her, he casts a look so full of ancient longing at a certain building and seems to lean towards it. He shakes himself out of it, though, and squeezes Winifred’s hand, taking the lead. 

Winifred glances back at the building and thinks she sees a small boy standing on the fire escape, glowing in the early sunlight. 

The walk home is long and George Barnes is already awake, but James falls asleep easier than he ever has. He gets up again that afternoon and goes out to play with the neighbourhood kids. Winifred watches him go and knows that her son is not entirely of this world. 

*

They meet for the first time when the sun is going down and the moon is already up, chasing it across the sky. The alleyway is disgusting, full of rotting garbage and piss and stagnant water. The boy getting the living daylights beaten out of him is beautiful. Bucky, racing in head-first to the sound of fighting, feels like the breath has been punched out of  _ him.  _ He has to pause, but it’s for barely a moment before he is pulling the much larger boy off of the fiery smaller boy.  

Bucky takes the time to hook the bigger boy across the jaw before he sends him scampering. Bucky’s always been a good fighter and with the moon’s glow beating down on his shoulders he is stronger than usual. He takes the time to watch the boy run, blood streaming down from his nose. 

“I had ‘em on the ropes,” comes from behind Bucky, the sentence broken by coughing. 

Bucky takes a deep breath and turns around. His bones feel too big for his body and he leans subconsciously towards the shard of sunlight hauling himself up off of the ground. “Didn’t look like it, pal,” Bucky retorts, his voice embarrassingly high. He clears his throat. 

The boy glares at him, pushing his hair off of his forehead. He’s covered in scratches and scrapes and bruises, Bucky realises. This isn’t rare for the boy. “What d’you want?” the boy asks, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and jutting his chin out in an act of defiance. 

“Uh,” Bucky’s kind of stumped - he could turn and go back to his walk, but he doesn’t ever want to let this boy out of sight again. “What’s your name?” he asks. 

The boy narrows his eyes. “Steve,” he says, taking a step forwards and holding out his hand like adults do. 

Bucky’s heart kind of leaps in his chest. “I’m Bucky,” he offers, and takes the boy’s -  _ Steve’s  _ \- hand. Energy zings between them and Bucky gasps, eyes going wide at the feeling. It’s like waves crashing against the rocks, sun beating down on frosted grass and warming it to the point of steam, the moon lighting up the otherwise darkest of nights. 

It’s like when the sun and moon meet in the skies above and create the eclipse. 

Steve lets go first, but his eyes are just as wide. Bucky huffs out a laugh, wondering at this moment. Steve raises an eyebrow and then playfully punches Bucky’s shoulder. “C’mon, I’ve never seen you in this part of the neighbourhood before. Where’re you from?” he asks, like nothing had happened. 

Bucky follows him out of the alleyway and proceeds to tell Steve the answer to anything he asks. Steve, in turn, replies with snippets of his own life. 

And, thus, Steve and Bucky, Sun and Moon, meet for the first time. They do not part again for many years to come. 

*

Their mothers meet pretty soon into the sudden and intense friendship. Winifred comes over to the Rogers’ place to pick up her son and Sarah opens the door, flustered and still in her nurse scrubs. They hadn’t met prior to this mainly because of Sarah’s job. 

Sarah welcomes Winifred in, delighted to meet the mother of her son’s best and only friend. She clasps their hands together and pulls Winifred in for an embrace, telling the other woman that the two boys had gone out for a walk and would surely be back soon and would you like a cup of tea?

Winifred accepts, smiling wide and genuine. They sit at the rickety table as the kettle boils on the sputtering stove. The space is small and stuffy but light pours in through the windows and it feels like a home. 

“I’m surprised we haven’t met before - Steve talks about you a lot,” Winifred says over her steaming cup. 

Sarah smiles, the lines on her face contrasting with the glitter in her eye. “I work a lot, down at the hospital. I’m lucky Steve has enough sense to take care of himself.” Though there was pride in her voice, there was also the echo of regret. 

“He’s lucky to have such a good mother. His father’s not around, is he?” Winifred asks gently. 

Sarah sips her tea, her gaze growing distant. “No, he died fighting in the Great War,” she murmurs. 

“My condolences,” Winifred says, attention drifting to the picture of a man in uniform on the wall. 

It’s silent, for a while, both content in sitting at the table and sipping their tea, both tired from the long day. As dusk settles around the city, the clattering footsteps of running boys can be heard outside the door. Muffled conversation floats through the thin walls and the front door swings open, revealing the two mud-encrusted sons of the two women. 

“Ma!” Bucky exclaims, gap-toothed grin splitting his face. 

Steve blinks at the sight of their two mothers sitting at the table, smiling as he catches sight of the look on his mother’s face. It’s very rare that he sees her so relaxed in the company of someone other than him. Sarah smiles back at him, though she gasps at the state of the boy’s knees. 

“You’re both filthy!” she exclaims, her voice soft to let them know there is no harm done. “Go and wash up, you two, but be quick. I’m sure Mrs Barnes needs to get back.”

“Yes, ma,” Steve says, scampering off to the poor excuse of a bath, grabbing Bucky’s hand and tugging him along. “Hi, Mrs Rogers!” Bucky manages to get out as he’s dragged away. 

Sarah and Winifred share a knowing look as their sons disappear from sight. The knowledge that they are on the same page passes between them without speaking - their boys are not ordinary children, but they must not know until the time comes. Their boys must be protected, for their future would never be normal. 

“Come over anytime you need,” Sarah says quietly, keeping half an ear on the sound of shrieking and water splashing. 

Winifred nods in acknowledgement. “You too, Sarah,” she murmurs. 

*

The boys grow into men. Bucky gets work down at the docks and Winifred watches him grow stronger, sees less and less of him as he, more often than not, stays over at Steve’s. The sparing time she spends with him make the changes he goes through all the more shocking. His hair is kept cropped back and his skin, despite all the sun he gets, stays olive-toned. His friendship with Steve Rogers grows until it’s rare to see one without the other outside of work. 

Steve gets work in between bouts of sickness painting signs around the neighbourhood and at the checkout at the grocery. Sarah watches him stay thin, go from weak to strong and back again. Despite the lack of sun he gets, his skin stays golden and tan. He’s attached to Bucky Barnes like a limpet to a rock. 

Together they get into more trouble than their mothers know, especially when Steve convinces Bucky to go out drinking, the both of them piling together enough change to get a bottle of cheap whiskey and go stumbling down by Coney Island. They take the train back to their neighbourhood and they are hanging over each other, laughing like there is nothing else in the world. 

Steve’s lips are pink like roses and Bucky’s eyes seem more silver than grey in this light. Steve’s hands are tight on the bar holding him up as the train lurches and Bucky’s hands can’t seem to help but wander towards Steve’s upper arms, gripping just enough for Steve’s face to flush. 

They are not alone in the train. 

Insults are thrown across vomit-stench air, filling the moment with hate.  _ Fairies. Queers.  _ Spittle flies with the words, fists following not far behind. Blood mixes with the piss on the floor, bruises bloom like clouds undulating across the moon or the sun being hidden behind a storm.

Hidden strength is found roiling in Steve’s gut and he grabs it with both hands and  _ rips  _ it to the surface, heat following from his core and out. With every punch that he throws, the bruise that follows is paired with scorching heat. The attacker screams, shock and pain making him stumble back. Their attackers pause, confused, but they are not deterred. 

Terrifying icy calm is found in the marrow of Bucky’s bones, waiting to be used. It’s been there all his life, nurturing him, shaping him. It makes him steady as a rock and cool as ice. His movements are fluid and sure and before long there are groaning bodies on the floor of the train and Steve and Bucky are stumbling off at their stop. 

Bucky throws an arm over Steve’s shoulder and steers him home. They do not speak of how easily they won a fight against five guys - they already know why. They instead bid each other farewell and go home to find their mothers waiting up, hands warm around a hot drink. 

It’s not the first time something like this has happened. 

It is not the last. 

*

When Sarah dies it rips a hole wide open in the worlds of Steve, Bucky and Winifred. The funeral is on a day burning so hot that Bucky feels as though he will pass out from how dizzy he is. Winifred stands beside her son - both her sons, now, for she has sworn to keep an eye on Steve as though he was hers - and weeps openly. 

Steve stands stock-still. He is not sweating in the heat. He is not phased by it. The sun beats down on his suited back as though it is furious on his behalf at this injustice. He and the sun boil, seething, as the coffin is lowered. As Earth covers Sarah’s body, burning misery swirls around the group gathered and nearly sweeps them all off their feet. 

Steve stalks home, feeling empty the moment he is under the shade and out of the sun. It is the thing keeping him standing. 

Bucky claps him on the shoulder in an attempt to comfort but wrenches his hand back, hissing. Steve’s skin is hot to the touch and the fire in his eyes as he whips around to face Bucky makes the other man take a step back. 

“This isn’t fair,” Steve hisses, but his shining eyes betray the fact that he is filled with horrible despair. 

Bucky tries to understand but he cannot, couldn’t possibly, so he instead does his best to be some form of comfort. As they step into Sarah’s -  _ Steve’s,  _ now - apartment, all the strength holding Steve up seems to seep out of him. Bucky catches him as he stumbles. Steve, steaming as heat leaves him just as the fight does, weeps against Bucky’s shoulder. 

As the sun goes down Bucky maneuvers Steve over to the rickety single bed that Steve sleeps in and lays them down. Afterwards, they don’t speak about how Bucky stayed awake all night, glowing with sympathy, despair and helplessness under the moonlight as Steve slept in fits. They don’t talk about how every time Steve woke gasping he found himself safe in Bucky’s arms and thanked him for it, shuddering with relief that he was not alone. They don’t talk about how Bucky pressed reassuring kisses to Steve’s temple, forehead, nose, lips to soothe him. 

They don’t talk about how as the sun came up, Steve’s skin grew warm as though it had been dormant throughout the night and Bucky’s cooled down. They don’t talk about how they met in the middle and rose to make breakfast, moving around each other, sluggish and recovering from the shock. 

They talk instead of how Bucky would need to go to work down at the docks tomorrow, and about how Steve’s boss at the grocery had given him the week off. They talk about how Bucky would be moving in and how they would go through Sarah’s things in the next few weeks. They talk about how neither of them want to go outside today.

They stay inside and try desperately to keep the bubble  strong around them. 

When they eventually have to go back to their lives, they ignore the newspapers that proclaim, shocked, that the hottest temperatures in decades had hit the city a few days ago. They ignore that the following night had been nearer to the coldest, the moon shining so bright it had near matched the sun. They ignore a lot of things. 

Life goes on. 

*

In a life full of struggle and fighting - fighting to make ends meet, fighting to stay alive, fighting for the justice of others - there are sweet, perfect moments stolen away in the dawns and dusks of each day. 

They lay on the couch in the late evening light, rose gold streaming in through the windows, spilling across the floor and over olive and tan skin. Hands wander - searching, discovering. Clothes lay in piles, scattered around the apartment. The door is locked and heady silence fills the stillness of the moment.

A thumb, over-warm, brushes over obscenely pink lips and strays across the high plane of a blush-dusted cheek before tucking a stray lock of dark hair behind an ear. Another hand, cooler than the room, runs a palm over the lean muscle of a thigh, up and up until a breathy sigh spills into the air. 

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs, eyes half-lidded as he pumps his lover’s half-hard dick. 

Steve groans, pressing fever-warm kisses up Bucky’s neck, tilting his head back to reach the space behind Bucky’s ear, tongue flicking over his earlobe before moving to pepper down his jaw where their lips finally meet. Tongues dip into mouths, teeth nip playfully at lips and hitching breaths mingle in the minimal space between them. 

Slow, unhurried, Steve moves one hand to tangle in Bucky’s shaggy hair as the other wanders down his hard abdomen to dip beneath his pants, teasing at the sensitive flesh there. This draws sweet, heady gasps from Bucky, ones Steve swallow greedily as though they are the things that feed him. 

The grind against each other’s hands, becoming slick and desperate. It’s sugar-sweet and filthy, both doing their best to elicit the dirtiest sounds from the other. Sunset-light has faded into twilight and the half-moon is shining bright and bold, pale yellow on the horizon. 

“Bucky -” a choked intake of breath is wrenched from Steve as he comes, Bucky’s teeth grazing over his jugular. 

Bucky groans in response, keening as he follows right after. They ride out their highs and lay panting in the moonlight as they come back down, hearts pounding against each other’s chests as though they would leap out of their skin to become one. 

“I love you,” Bucky whispers into Steve’s ear like the secret that it must but shouldn’t be. 

Steve shudders, lifting himself up to blink down at Bucky before pulling him close again, their foreheads pressed together. “And I you,” Steve says, louder than he should, but oh how he wishes to be able to scream it from the rooftops. 

Bucky searches Steve’s eyes but all he finds is love shining there, brighter than the sun. If anyone else were to look as he did, they would find it too and their secret would be on display for the world to see. Steve presses his lips to Bucky’s and finds him so responsive, so tantalisingly willing to give himself over. 

_ And oh how we wish these things could last,  _ echoes in both their minds. 

But they cannot and do not.

*

When the war comes, it’s Steve who goes to register and Bucky who stays behind, fuming, hauling crates down at the docks. When the sun drifts behind a thick curtain of storm cloud and the day grows cold, Bucky heads down to the water and throws himself into it. He is tossed and thrown about with the tide but he is unafraid. Even during the day the moon would never let him drown. 

He heads home soaking wet, marching through the pelting rain with a scowl on his face that hides nothing. Steve is there on the couch with the 4F in his hands, a matching scowl marring his expression. 

“Why do you feel the need to prove yourself?” Bucky asks, slamming the door behind him. 

Steve sneers, his lips drawn back in a an ugly snarl. “I got no right to do any less than others, Bucky. This ain’t about  _ provin’  _ myself. We both  _ know  _ I could fight.”

Bucky knows, all too well, how well Steve can fight. He’s got fire in his blood, the sun in his veins. He could burn a man inside out, given the chance. This is what Bucky fears. He does not say this. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? No one’ll believe you, so you can’t go.”

“I don’t understand how you could be so cruel! You know what this means to me! I’m  _ used  _ to war, I’m  _ good  _ at it!” Steve howls, standing up from the couch, the letter crumpled in his fist. 

Bucky shakes his head, meeting Steve’s anger with cool fury. “You are not only good at war, Steve. Passion is not only useful in battle! You use it every day - there is so much you already do! Why serve yourself a death sentence?” he cries. 

“Bucky, this is our  _ country  _ going to  _ war!  _ I’m going to fight, you know I’ll find a way. Stay behind; you know I have no quarrel with your distaste of war. But I  _ thrive  _ in it,” Steve spits, the blue of his eyes hardly distinguishable among the fiery amber. 

Bucky growls, taking a step back, feeling stung. “You’d leave me here to worry for you? You know I couldn’t do that. I would go  _ insane  _ thinking about you risking your goddamn life over some game of life-and-death  _ chess.  _ If you go, you’re sentencing the both of us,” he snaps, grinding his teeth together. 

Back and forth they go, the damage of each other’s words searing into their skin like age-old, unhealed, festering wounds.

“I grow tired of this,” Steve hisses. “How many times will we have this fight? Is it worth it? We will always end up apart. What is the point in coming back together for more heartache?” He is spittle and venom, saying things he does not mean and will regret in the heat of the fight. 

Bucky flinches back as though struck. “How long have you been thinking this? Why not  _ talk to me?”  _ He waits for the reply, but Steve is stubborn and thick-headed at times, too slow to smooth over the deep cut he has scored across Bucky’s chest - the very same chest he had lain against and proclaimed his love to the night before. 

Bucky waits a moment more, but Steve presses his lips together, jaw clenched, eyes wild. Pain sears its way through Bucky’s bones like lightning and he lets out a slow hiss, backing away. “Fine, have it your way. Is our love not enough? Do you crave battle that much? Is it more to you than I?”

Bucky does not wait for an answer this time. He turns and wrenches open the door, the handle crumpling under his hand. He slams it behind him and the sound rings out, final and damning. Steve stands in the middle of the lounge, breathing hard, shock starting to set in again. He is too volatile, he knows. It is his nature. He is angry and full of fire and passion and yet again he has channeled it wrong, so wrong. 

He collapses to the couch. The letter in his hand in singed, parts of it blacked and burned away. Not for the first time, he wonders if it is all worth it. 

Tomorrow, he takes the train across the city when Bucky does not come back. He tries to register under a different name at a different office. The 4F that stares at him becomes nothing but a challenge. 

*

As always, they return to each other. It’s Steve that goes to the sea, his apology rolling off of his tongue from where it had been going in circles in his brain for the past few weeks. He finds Bucky on the shore, water lapping at his feet. The moon is near full above them, staring down at them as if accusing. 

Steve walks up to his centuries-old lover and stands beside him, their bodies close but not touching. The sea sings to them, waves crashing and foaming, laughing and whispering. Bucky’s hair is wet and his eyes are silver in the moonlight, reflecting the night sky. Steve has felt further from him before, though. They have been through much worse. 

Bucky blinks out at the endless ocean. Steve sucks in a breath and speaks, the words tired but heart-felt. Unpractised yet not unspoken before. “I cannot take back what has been said,” he murmurs, barely heard above the roar of the sea. “We have had this fight before. We have both apologised before. The only reason I am here again, hoping you have not decided that it is not worth it, is because everytime this happens I feel empty -  _ hollow -  _ inside. What is the sun without the moon?” 

Steve takes a deep breath, letting it billow out like dust, clearing his chest. “I love you, Bucky. I’m sorry that I’ve done this to us again. Sometimes I think it would be better if we could not remember our past.”

Bucky looks at him, the lines of his face sharp in the moonlight. He looks shocked. “You would want to forget everything we’ve been through? We would not be  _ us  _ if we did not have what we’ve been through.” 

Though he is shocked he does not appear angry. Steve presses on. “Not forever. We could have our memories return to us when we were finished with this incarnation. Have the echoes with us in these lives we send ourselves to live, so we may be together,” he suggests. 

Bucky purses his lips, turning away to look out to sea. “Maybe you speak sense,” he mutters. “Why not try it? I hate to fight with you.”

Steve, too, turns his gaze to the roiling ocean. “It would be interesting to see how this life would pan out.” He speaks of the upcoming war, of the draft letter waiting for Bucky back at the apartment. Of the hidden 4F’s that all have different names on them. 

Bucky reaches out and laces his fingers with Steve’s. “Very well. When we wake tomorrow, we will have not recollection of being Sun and Moon. We will be Steve and Bucky and when it is time, we will remember all.”

Steve nods, squeezing Bucky’s hand. “I will see you soon, my love,” he whispers. 

Bucky turns and presses a kiss to Steve’s temple, before refocusing on the sea. Come morn, the two ancient lovers disappear deep into the minds of Steve and Bucky, and they wake as normal humans. 

Bucky packs for basic by noon and Steve sees him off at the station, Winifred sobbing beside him. Steve turns away the moment he’s gone and heads for the nearest army volunteer station. He burns with the need to be close to Bucky again, but he does not question why the need feels like his heart is being torn from his chest the further away Bucky gets.  

The sun and moon shine down upon them each night, wondering at what is to come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let them rest


	3. Part Two - War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know war. for that i am glad.

Bucky is full of terror and pain and confusion. Walls swim around him, fire tears it’s way through his veins and the ceiling drips venom down to seep through his skin. He screams, he knows he does, but it feels like the sound comes from far away. 

Voices ring in his head, some kind, some horrible; both taunting him. He is strapped down to a table, but only knows this in his rare moments of clarity. He was captured with others - there must be others here, he hopes they’re alright - but he was chosen and taken and now he is here, fighting for his life and his mind. 

There is a man who comes to lean over him, to sneer at him and coo at him and tell him he will be - what, a weapon?  _ Hydra, Hydra, Hydra,  _ the voices hiss. The walls gape at him,slime drips down their faces and into their open mouths where they growl and spit, sending him spiralling away into horrible darkness. 

The darkness laughs at him and poison is injected into his bloodstream and he  _ writhes  _ and  _ burns.  _

When he can see again, it is no better. His whole body feels like it is on fire and he wishes for the blessed cold of the ocean, wishes he could throw himself into its depths to be cradle and cleaned. He wishes for it to wash away everything he is feeling, to keep him safe and drown those who torture him. He does not know why he wishes for this.

He wishes for Steve, to be held by him, to hold him, to be near him. He knows exactly why he wishes for this. 

He is careful not to say his name. The terrible thing is that he has no idea if he succeeds or not. The darkness swallows him again before he can really think about it. Fire and venom is pushed into his body, the rat-man takes notes and peers at him over round glasses with eyes full of malice. 

He does not know when this will end. His mind calls out for Steve. He hopes his love is safe. 

*

Coffee stains on his shirt and lips bitten red, the open window sends cool air billowing into the little room. Erksine had given him a chance and Steve had taken it on a desperate gamble. Bucky had always said not to gamble when you’ve got something to lose and, well, at that point Steve truly had nothing. 

Bucky hadn’t replied to his letters in months and the frontlines had gotten worse. Steve couldn’t count the hours he’d spent bent in his chair, ears close to the radio spitting out news from the war. Winifred had come to check on him often, Becca trailing behind her, her young face drawn in worry. 

It was Winifred who’d cupped his face in her hands and drawn him close, cradling him like he was her own son. “I know you miss him, but there’s nothing for you here, crouched beside this radio in the dark waiting for some damning news. Go outside, feel the sun on your face and find some purpose. I will be here for you if you need,” she had said, so soft. 

And he’d listened, hadn’t he? He’d gone to the one recruitment centre he hadn’t yet and he’d applied, writing the forms out with practiced words, changing up a few. July 4th goes down as his new birth date with a snort. He keeps his name the same, though. Leaves out his middle name. Changes his birthplace, leaves out all his ailments. Stands up straight as his form is looked over. 

He goes in for the medical check and is stopped by a kind-eyed, strong-accented man.

Erksine offers him the chance of a lifetime. Steve takes it with greedy hands and a desperate heart. 

Now, here in this little room with night falling outside, Steve is heading with the USO Tour to perform for different regiments. Although he feels like a parading monkey who knows he could do more with this new, strong body, he is grateful. He is doing  _ something.  _ And maybe he’ll find Bucky. 

He spends each performance scanning the crowds for Bucky’s face among the tired, jeering men. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for. He carries on, trying to ignore the growing sense that something very terrible has happened.  _ Is  _ happening. The USO girls pick up on his unease, try and help him, try and get him to talk. He can’t - not without spilling his guts about Bucky. 

So he stays quiet and he bides his time and he bites his nails down to the quick. 

It’s when one of the girls mentions that they were performing for the 107th that morning that Steve feels a tiny flicker of a flame ignite in his chest. He stands, eyes wide, before going straight to the General’s tent. 

And James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th has been captured along with many other men. And there will be no recovery team.

_ Well,  _ Steve thinks, jaw set and face pulled into a stubborn frown,  _ if no one else will.  _

And he goes. He storms the base, a one-man army, releases the men being kept and feeds them lines to get them going, give them hope. He fights with strength he knew he had but hadn’t tested, batting the enemy away as if they were no more than flies. He knows where he’s headed. His heart tugs him along, shows him where to go, leads him down hallways and through doors that are filled with horrors and - 

Bucky. 

He’s strapped to a table, muttering nonsense and Steve leans over him, tells him he’s here, he’ll get him out, not to worry, here, stand up, lean on me, here we go. 

“I thought you were  _ dead.” _

“I thought you were smaller.”

And out they go, back along the way to come face-to-face with a man with a red face and no nose. Steve’s not listening, he can’t, not really, because Bucky is pressed to his side, warm and alive. They’ve been apart for  _ so long  _ and he never knew breathing to be this easy. The place goes up in flames and Bucky’s  _ terrified,  _ Steve can feels it coming from him in waves so he holds him closer, pulls him away from the edge as Red Skull disappears. 

The flames lap hungrily at them, the tongues of some great monster ready to sweep them into their open jaws. Steve sends Bucky across the beam first because he knows he couldn’t bear to leave him behind, not ever. Bucky’s too weak to argue, too tired and drawn. He stumbles across, nearly falls and - 

“Go! Get out of here!” 

“ _ No!  _ Not without you!” 

And Steve thinks, well, alright. He takes a deep breath and gathers his strength, stepping back as far as he can and he runs, he jumps, he soars. Flames lick at his heels but he does not feels the heat, he does not feel the pain. It’s as if the very fire that wants to consume him is helping him across the gap that keeps him from being with Bucky. 

When he lands, he finds himself wrapped in cooler-than-they-should-be arms. Bucky has his face pressed into Steve’s shoulder and he’s taking a deep, steadying breath. “Idiot.”

“Your idiot,” Steve murmurs, heart pounding in his chest like it will escape at any moment. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Bucky huffs, cheeks flushed from the heat of the burning building, sweat glistening on his pale face. 

Steve hauls them both up, wraps an arm around Bucky, and they go. They get out safe, they meet up with the rest of the 107th and they trek back to base. They are met with cheers and welcome and disbelief. Steve sees nothing but Bucky, safe for now. The fever that had filled Bucky’s eyes back at the enemy base has faded enough that Steve can read the storm that is roiling there. 

They will not be safe for long.

*

They are thrust back into war with just enough time in between to catch their breath. Alcohol swirls through Bucky’s blood as the orders to get a team together come to him from Steve -  _ Captain Rogers.  _ Steve looks uncomfortable about the title, knows he hasn’t earned it in the traditional way. Bucky makes sure to tell him how much he loves him at least once a day, whispered into his ear when they can catch a moment alone. 

Bucky knows Steve doesn’t want to ask him if he’ll join the team, if he’ll rejoin the war effort. He never wanted to go to war, after all. But they both know that Bucky wouldn’t -  _ couldn’t  _ \- say no now, not if it meant leaving Steve behind to do something stupid and get himself killed, even with all that new muscle. 

So he says yes and goes for a walk to clear his head as Steve goes to ask the others he chosen for the team - those who had caught Steve’s eye during the escape. Bucky knew some of the men, knew they’d make a formidable team. 

The base camp is bustling at night so Bucky turns to wander through the woods, the bright three-quarter moon providing him with a strange comfort. He feels like he wears it like a cloak around his shoulders as he stalks silently through the trees. It might just be the bottle of whiskey, but he’s not stupid. He should be passed out in his own vomit somewhere after what he’d drunk. 

The rat-man from the enemy base -  _ Hydra, it was Hydra, the name had been hissed from the shadows, filling the terrified corners of his mind -  _ had done something to him, made him wrong, made his writhe and scream and change. 

He tries to push it from his mind, at least for now, and focus on the woods around him. His eyes are sharper than usual and he is able to see things he shouldn’t, even with the moon. He can hear the nightlife tittering around him with a clarity he’s not used to. Even the moon itself seems to be singing to him. 

Instead of being afraid, he is comforted. 

When he returns to his bed in the early morning, his thoughts are calm and he knows that he will be ready to return to active duty. He’s even further sure of this as he remembers that this time Steve will be with him. They will walk together, a force that will send the enemy shivering to their mothers. 

He is sure of this, and it feels right, it feels like it is something he knows with the surety of past experience. He tries not to dwell on it. Instead, he lays down and pulls the sheet up to his chin. He closes his eyes and forces the images of needles and torture and the stench of fear and piss out of his mind. He focuses on what is to come. 

*

Their special task force is made up of Steve, Bucky, Mortia, Dernier, Dum Dum, Monty and Gabe and they are the Howling Commandos. They are tasked with taking down HYDRA, with gathering information about the special Nazi segment and battling them back. 

Steve glances at Bucky, sees his jaw clench and his teeth grind together and it fills Steve with the burning need to take HYDRA down, to burn it to ash, bury the ashes  and piss on the grave. He has to swallow the overwhelming fury that crashes into him so as not to lash out. 

Their first mission brief is that very day. Steve’s glad to have somewhere to direct his anger. He pours all his focus into the mission, plans it out, checks the plan with the others and then they’re off. They are to intercept a truck that is full of HYDRA agents heading back to their base. The truck is full of weapons and possibly information. The mission is behind enemy lines. 

Steve glances around at the men he is in charge of an responsible for and he knows that they are ready. He catches Bucky’s eye and nods, seeing only grim determination in the man that he loves. 

The ensuing firefight as the HYDRA agents fight back is far from a mess. Bucky, high in the trees some twenty yards away picks off the agents where he can, avoiding his teammates with a terrifying precision. Steve watches them fall but doesn't linger long enough to see that the shots are nigh-on impossibly perfect. 

The mission goes perfectly. They gather what they can from the truck and Dernier sets it with charges to blow as they hurry away. The resounding boom can be heard from miles away as the weapons and engine explode. 

Bucky meets them at the extraction point, face dirty with camouflage but eyes brighter than the moon. Steve aches with the need to pull him close and breathe him in, and he sees the mirror of his longing reflected in Bucky, but they have to settle for warm smiles and clasped forearms. 

The Howling Commandos’ luck quickly spreads throughout the war effort as they are sent out again and again, with their successes trailing behind them.  _ War is ugly and terrible,  _ Steve thinks,  _ but I feel at home here, among the chaos, with Bucky by my side.  _ He does not, cannot, speak his mind, but the others see the way Steve thrives in this environment. They see the way Bucky is always at his six, eyes haunted but glowing. 

They know that these two couldn’t possibly be human, even if the two do not realise it themselves. They don’t mention it. They are merely thankful to have the two not-quite-just-men walking among them. 

*

There are few and far between quiet moments that Steve and Bucky can steal away. It’s  usually in the dead of the night, in between missions, when everyone else is either asleep or too drunk to notice anything. They walk side-by-side, shoulders brushing with every silent step, out into the woods. 

They walk far enough away they they will be neither seen nor heard. When they reach this point, their hands grip each other’s and swing between them, warm and cool, tan and olive. They murmur to each other, voices low -  _ just in case  _ \- and the night envelopes them like they are it’s own. 

They talk of home, about Winifred and George and Becca, about their tiny apartment that must have been leased to someone else by now. They talk about Sarah, about how next time they get leave they’ll go and visit her grave and tell her everything. They don’t talk about how it looks like they’ll never get leave. 

They talk about the streets they’d roamed since childhood, about people they knew, wondering what they were up to now. They talk about the docks and the beach and the grocer and the fire escape. They talk about better food, about warm beds and dawns and dusks spent together, closer than they can ever be here. 

It’s around this time they stop talking, except to murmur sweet nothings into each other’s ears. 

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand in warning and pushes him up against a tree, a filthy look in his eye. He grins at the sultry look Steve gives him, presses a kiss to his cheek, forehead, nose, lips. He lets his hands roam over Steve’s body like they long to, hiking Steve’s shirt up and off. He presses his mouth to Steve’s nipples, shudders as they harden against the cold air. 

Steve draws in a shaky breath, fingers digging into Bucky’s hips.  _ “Bucky,”  _ is breathed out into the woods.

“Yes, baby?” Bucky murmurs, tongue flicking over the bud he’s focused on, fingers trailing up Steve’s sides before coming to rest on each side of his face. He lifts his head, presses a kiss to sweet to Steve’s lips that their legs both go weak. 

It’s Steve who turns the kiss into something more, something full of the need to be closer. “I miss touching you,” he whispers, grazing his teeth over Bucky’s lips, reveling in the way it makes Bucky shiver. 

“I miss it too,” Bucky replies. He doesn’t say that they could run away, hide deep in the woods, steal away overseas and find somewhere untouched by war and live out their days there. He doesn’t say it because Steve thrives in the heat of war. He doesn’t say it because he couldn’t bare the fight that would come from it. He doesn’t say it because he knows it couldn’t happen, not really. But oh how he wishes it would. 

Steve moans as Bucky’s hands, almost of their own accord, dip down into the front of Steve’s pants and grip his dick, finding it half-hard already. “I miss  _ fucking  _ you,” Bucky growls, voice husky with promise, hips grinding forwards to rut against Steve’s. 

“God -  _ Buck _ \- do it, I brought slick, I can take it,” Steve begs, hands tugging at Bucky’s pants, undoing them, reaching inside. 

Bucky’s breath hitches as Steve’s finds him growing stiff, clever fingers trailing over the dusty brown skin there, feeling him twitch with barely restrained want. “Sweet Jesus, baby, right up against this tree, huh? That how bad you want it?” he rasps, hands coming to wrap around Steve’s wrists and hold them fast.

They don’t pause at the fact that Bucky  _ can  _ hold Steve’s arms in place, how he can match Steve’s strength and keep pace with him. They’ve figured this out. They don’t talk about it. They don’t have time, in war like this, to ponder over things that are an asset to the fight. Or...to other things.

“Fuck me, Bucky,  _ fuck me,”  _ Steve growls, pulling the slick from a pocket on his pants, before pressing a searing kiss to Bucky’s mouth and yanking both their pants down. 

Bucky hisses at the cold air but doesn’t pause - he takes the slick from Steve and turns him around, bends him right over. Steve goes, so pliant and willing under Bucky’s hands, and pushes back against them, silently telling him to hurry up. 

“You’re unbelievable, Rogers,” Bucky mutters, taking some slick and circling Steve’s hole. He takes his time to open Steve up - this happens very rarely, and Steve always tighter than Bucky can believe. Steve is clearly trying to hurry Bucky along but Bucky simply grazes his fingers over his lover’s prostate and digs his teeth into his shoulder to keep him from practically grabbing Bucky’s dick and doing it himself. 

Steve whines, panting hard. His whole body is flushed pink and Bucky marvels at it, mouths at the skin of his ass and twists his fingers this way and that, making sure Steve’s ready. “Bucky -  _ please,”  _ Steve gasps and - yeah. Okay. 

Bucky pulls back and turns Steve around, pressing a kiss to his lips to soften the feeling of emptiness that he knows Steve’s feeling. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ve got you,” he murmurs and without pausing he lifts Steve up, pressed him back against the tree and lines himself up and - 

_ “Fuck,”  _ Steve hisses, throwing his head back and digging his fingers into Bucky’s shoulders where he’s clinging to him so tight Bucky can feels the bruises forming. 

Bucky mouths at Steve’s neck, unable to help himself with all that skin on display for him, before lifting Steve up just the slightest, tilting his own hips away before s _ lamming  _ them back together. He does it over and over, panting, his breath billowing out in clouds of steam and mingling with Steve’s.

Steve’s head falls back down, his eyes locking with Bucky’s, bright with fever. He’s rocking his hips back and forth, just so, creating a delicious movement that sends them both toppling towards their climaxes to fast you’d think they were still virgins. Steve nearly howls out as he spills between them, untouched, but he claps a hand over his mouth and bites down, and  _ fuck  _ doesn’t that just do it for Bucky. 

Bucky slams into him one more time, burying himself up to the hilt and leans against Steve, trapping him against the tree, gasping out a curse and an  _ I love you  _ before capturing Steve’s mouth again. They kiss slow and feverish, Bucky pulling out and setting Steve down, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close. 

“I love you too, Buck,” Steve murmurs. 

The moon is their only witness and it smiles down at them. As dawn begins to make it’s arrival, the moon makes sure to whisper what it has seen before dipping down below the horizon. The sun laughs, shining bright and early, spreading hazy warmth over the Earth. 

*

Their mission is insane. They are to zipline down onto a speeding train and take their hostage and get back to extraction point. It’s insane, but. Their hostage will be  _ Zola,  _ the rat-man, the evil that Bucky watched pump god-knows-what into his veins, who tortured him, who told him he was to be nothing but a  _ weapon _ . They can’t ignore this chance; it may be their only one. 

So they pull on their warmest gear and their bravest faces and they trek across the goddamn alps and stare down at the train tracks and make themselves believe that they can do it. 

“This isn’t payback for the time I made you ride the roller coaster at Coney Island and you threw up, right?” Bucky asks, a shake in his voice betraying the fear he feels, but his eyes show that he is ready to do this. 

Steve smirks, remembering. “Now, why would I do that?” he replies, mirth making the sentence warm. 

They share a look and the unspoken  _ I love you’s  _ travel across the space between them. They look away, back at the train tracks. They don’t speak about the uncertainty, the feeling that something back is going to happen, the dread that seems to be filling their minds. Instead, they face the mission with grim determination. 

When Steve feels Bucky’s fingers just a breath from his as he leans out of the hole in the train and Bucky dangles in the icy air over the gorge, he feels warm for one, tiny, barely-there moment. But he feels it. It’s all he has to hold onto for many years to come as Bucky screams, falling, away, away he goes. 

Steve is nothing but a blank husk, so startlingly different from the burning soldier he had been when he first joined this war. Was it worth it, losing their time together to fight some human war? And it’s the guilt, the all-consuming despair, that does it for Steve. He boards the plane with intent in mind - he will be with his love again soon.

He fights Schmidt with an emptiness that frightens even himself. He cannot even react to the sight of the universe swallowing Schmidt up, stary teeth claiming him as theirs. He can only stare and wish it had been him - that he was back among the stars, staring across the galaxy at his love.  

When Steve watches the ice rush up to meet him, it’s that tiny glimmer of warmth he felt on the train that he holds onto. He does not die alone. He holds the speck of warmth close and he cradles it, he closes his eyes and wraps himself in it, just a thin layer of glowing, horizon-moon-yellow warmth.

When the ice freezes him he prays to the sun and the moon and the moon and wishes to back with Bucky soon. His wish is not, cannot, be granted, for the sun and moon are both frozen in ice on Earth. 

*

When Bucky falls, his eyes remain stuck on Steve who speeds away on the train, a look of heart-wrenching despair and horror painted on his face. To Bucky, he looks like the sun, and he holds that thought close as he tumbles into the ravine, down down down. 

When HYDRA come and get him, it’s all he can do not to sob. He had known he wouldn’t make it out of this war. He’d  _ known.  _ And yet the only regret he has is that he couldn’t tell Steve he loved him one more time, to let him know that none of this was his fault.

When the ice wraps around him as they freeze him, he prays to the sun and the moon and wishes for this to all be over soon so he can watch over Steve. His wish is not, cannot, be granted, for the sun and moon are both frozen in ice on Earth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did the sex scene need to be more detailed that a lot of the things in this goddamn fic? no. probably not. also; ow.


	4. Part Three - The Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let! Them! Rest!

The future is strange and loud and bright. He’d thought that he streets below his and Bucky’s were noisy, he’d thought that the gunfire and shouting and machinery of war was deafening, he’d thought the cracking of arctic ice had been oud enough to tear him apart. The unfamiliar city of New York manages to render all of his senses useless. 

Steve doesn’t know what to do when he races out into the middle of Times Square. He stands there in the middle of strange, busy traffic and stares around him, lost and confused. Not even the sun seems to reach him here. 

He is desperate for a distraction, so when Fury offers him a job, he takes it without thinking. The wars of this new world will keep him busy. Perhaps they will even fill the gaping hole in his chest. These are the lies he tells himself. 

The first thing he does when they tell him he’s ‘free to go but we’ll be in touch’, is hunt down Winifred’s grave. He kneels before it and lets the tears come - no one has followed him here, he’s made sure of it. He sobs and begs for her forgiveness, tells her he’s sorry, tells her how much he loves her and her son. 

There is no forgiveness if one can not forgive themself. 

Afterwards he touches the white roses he’d put there for her and stands, wiping his face. He tells her he’d visit next week. He finds his mother’s grave, next, but he’s all cried out. He sits there and talks to her, voice quiet and broken. 

“I don’t belong here, ma,” he says, “I don’t know this world, I don’t know anyone in it. I miss you, I’ve come to peace with you not bein’ here anymore - but,  _ ma.  _ Everyone else was gone in the blink of an eye. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to grieve. I thought I was dead, ma, I thought I’d find Bucky and you and I thought we’d watch over our families and then when the time came we would all be together but you’re  _ all gone and I’m still here, I’m the only one left and -”  _

He’d thought he was out of tears. Apparently not. 

He can’t bring himself to visit the Howling Commandos’ memorial for another week. It’s just - it’s too much. When he does, he can do nothing but stand and stare. He learns that they never found Bucky’s body. 

In the end, that’s what really does it. He turns and stalks away, barely able to keep himself together under the watchful eye of the press, who have recently caught wind that he’s alive. He grabs a go-bag he’s already put together and takes one of SHIELD’s cars. He rips out the bugs that are in it and disappears into the steady flow of traffic. 

He doesn’t stop until he reaches a one-lane road full of potholes that winds deep into woodland. He parks the car in the bush, hidden from the road. It can rot there for all he cares, but he knows he’ll need it to get back, so he marks a tree beside the road that he will see. 

Then he goes. He walks for hours, days, nights. He gets lost and unlost and then loses himself to his grief, his anguish. There are no words or circumstances to describe what he feels, what he’s going through, no metaphors or trick-of-words. He doesn’t know how to deal with any of it, and so, he tries in the only way he knows how. 

He finds his way back to the car and returns to SHIELD and asks for war. 

They are wary but glad to see him. He is put to work that day, suiting him up and sending him off to fight godforsaken  _ aliens,  _ of all things. 

The risks he takes in the battle pay off, but only in the eyes of others. He wonders if he is trying to kill himself. He’s thought about it, sure, but then he thinks of Bucky’s face, of Winifred’s and his Ma’s and he can’t bring himself to even try. 

So he carries on. The team he’s in - the Avengers - they try and befriend him, in their own, strange way. He doesn’t try. He’s still. Processing? He spends nights laying awake, staring at the ceiling. He always leaves the curtains open - Bucky had always loved the moon, felt drawn to it, had always been more comfortable under it than the sun. Steve supposes he feels closer to Bucky when he’s under the moon’s gentle glow. 

There are so many wars raging in this world and Steve feels like he has a foot in all of them, with the way SHIELD sends him around the globe to fight in them. He is barely ever off his feet, his hands are barely ever ungloved, his back feels bare without the shield strapped to it. It doesn’t take long for him to lose himself to the fight.

And then -  _ and then  _ HYDRA are still at large. Steve has not left everything behind. The very worst of it has followed him here. 

He barely surfaces long enough to feel anything before he is diving back down, down down down into a war he’d thought was long ended. He tells SHIELD he will fight nothing but HYDRA and, in the end it’s all a terrible irony because he was fighting for HYDRA all along. 

When he thinks it can’t get  _ possibly  _ any worse, his eyes meet Bucky’s and he wants to scream, he wants to take the world up in his hands and crush it, burn it, swallow it and digest it because  _ how,  _ how could anything possibly be this cruel? Is he in Hell? Did he die on that godforsaken plane and go straight to Hell? Is that what this is - some kind of punishment, some kind of horrible torture? 

He falls to his knees and stares into an abyss of despair and lets it swallow him right up. 

*

“I knew him.” 

The Asset, the Soldier, the Ghost sits in the Chair of Forgetting and stares into an abyss of confusion. There are voices ringing in his ears, whispering sweet nothings, telling him  _ remember, remember, he is here, he is waiting for you, go to him, remember, remember.  _

A slap brings him to the present, sends the whispers away screaming. The Asset, the Soldier, the Ghost stares at his handler and narrows his eye, brows drawn together, lips parted just so - creating a look of such bafflement that his handler blinks in surprise. 

“You met him on an earlier mission,” a half-lie tumbles out into the echoing room. 

The Asset’s focus slips and his eyes become fixed on a point no one else can see. The whispers come crawling back, tentative. “But I  _ knew  _ him,” he insists. 

“Wipe him, start again.” 

Echoes. 

The Chair of Forgetting straps him to it and he leans back. And - oh -  _ Steve - Steve no, oh God, please, please no, don’t make me forget again, STEVE! _

The Chair of Forgetting takes Bucky up in its steel-and-lightning jaws and crunches down on him, chewing, rolling him around in it’s mouth like gristle before spitting him out again. He is but a heap of flesh-and-blood-and-bone-and-metal, shivering and desperate. 

“You have shaped the century. We need you to do it one more time.”

He is shaking, shaking apart. There is a tiny flicker of something, deep inside, but it is snuffed out before he can examine it. “Sir,” the Asset, the Soldier, the Ghost replies, obedient like a well-tamed dog. 

*

The mission is to make sure the Helicarriers don’t kill millions of people.

_ The mission is to make sure the Helicarriers kill millions of people.  _

He doesn’t want to have kill or harm to complete this mission. 

_ He doesn’t have a choice whether or not he will kill or harm on this mission.  _

When he meets him on the bridge of the third helicarrier, he doesn’t know if he will survive this. 

_ When he meets him on the bridge of the third helicarrier, he doesn’t know what’s happening.  _

Above them, the sun and moon grow closer and pass into the path of each other. 

_ Above them, an eclipse glares down at the Earth, as if accusing.  _

As the third helicarrier crashes into the Potomac, he sinks down into murky waters. 

_ As the third helicarrier crashes into the Potomac, he dives down into murky waters.  _

*

Just before he sinks to the bottom of the river, the Sun stares up at the fading light and catches sight of an arm made of metal reaching for him. His chest thumps painfully and he fights against his closing eyelids, but he is no match for the loss of blood and exhaustion that consumes him. He drifts. 

The Moon’s hand grips the collar of the Sun’s uniform and he holds fast, kicking against the water, fighting to bring them both to the surface. No matter how enhanced they are, they are no match for the water that surrounds them, hungry like wolves. He pulls them up, up up up to the waiting air, pulls the Sun so close he can feels burns forming and drags them both through the debris to the shore. 

The Moon stands over the Sun, the Eclipse - both of them together in the sky - behind them, staring down, waiting and watching for what happens next. 

Sinking down to his knees, the Moon rubs at the Sun’s chest and presses his lips to his. The Sun coughs, water bubbling out of his mouth and he rolls onto his side, exhausted but warm. There are hands on him, careful, unsure. 

For the first time in many years, the Moon feels like he is home. The Sun looks up at him, eyes red, lips pulled up into a watery smile. Steam rises from his body and the Moon breathes out a sigh of relief. 

“It’s time,” the Moon murmurs.

The Sun huffs out a breath, sitting up. The Moon hurries to help him. “Let’s not forget again,” the Sun says, voice hoarse. 

“No, next time we come to Earth, we will not waste a single moment. The pull to each other will be so strong that the very forces of Earth will help us to be together always,” the Moon swears.

The Sun smiles, soft and sweet. “I love you,” he says, louder than he needs to. 

“As I love you,” the Moon replies like a pledge, a promise.

The Sun goes to stand and the Moon helps him. They lean against each other, wounded but unbroken. They look up to the Eclipse, which is already ending. The Sun and the Moon clasp hands, pressing their foreheads together, eyes meeting with such intensity they need not say a thing. 

The centuries-old lovers have said what they need to say a million times before. 

“We will be together again soon,” the Moon says.

The Sun laughs, bright and brilliant. “It won’t be long,” he agrees. 

“The next Eclipse and I shall be in your arms again,” declares the Moon, a glimmer of delight in his eye. 

The Sun presses a kiss to the corner of the Moon’s mouth, such joy filling him that he feels he couldn’t possibly wait till then. “The next Eclipse,” he agrees. 

In the sky, the sun and moon draw apart, the Eclipse ending. On Earth, Steve and Bucky take a step back from each other, arms outstretched, palm gliding over palm, fingers touching and then dropping. Their forms seem to glimmer in the light of the sun as the moon moves further away. They hold each other’s gaze, smiling softly, until they both simply fade from sight. 

They disappear, leaving nothing but a memory.

That night, the moon glows brighter in the sky than it has in almost one hundred years. It lights up the Earth, stunning the beings living there. The next day, the sun does just the same, laughing down at everyone as it’s rays reach even the darkest corner of Earth. 

The legends of Captain America and the Winter Soldier remain just that - legends. Captain Rogers, his body having never been found after the Helicarriers, is given another memorial beside the Howling Commandos’ one. His legacy is remembered for centuries and the Winter Soldier’s identity is never revealed. 

SHIELD is rebuilt with new leaders, ones that bite off the heads of any HYDRA’s they find. 

Sometime in the future, letters between Steve Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes are unearthed. Their undeniable love is shared with the world. Steve and Bucky are not there to see it, but the sun and moon, shining bright in the Earth’s skies, glow just that little bit brighter around that time. 

Life on Earth goes on and in the skies, a new Eclipse is foretold to happen soon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will not rest until marvel allows them to rest and be in love (iw didn't actually happen, so....)


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, in my cave deep in the woods sipping kawa kawa tea and thinking about the recent lunar eclipse; hmmmmmmm (steve and bucky were definitely just reincarnated and they are somewhere, in love, happy and content and nothing bad will ever happen to them again)

An Eclipse draws ever closer, the early stages already forming in the sky. The Sun and Moon, from Earth, appear brighter than they’ve ever been, as though excited. Beings on Earth watch on in awe as the edges of the two great Gods come to touch, the sight so great eyes must be shielded. 

No one catches sight of the falling stars that drop from the sky as the Sun and Moon meet. It is only later, looking at recordings of the Eclipse that people realise that the stars seem to hurtle towards Earth, crashing into orbit before disappearing as though never there. 

People ponder, wonder, guess and discuss but no one finds the correct answer. 

In a modest hospital two woman scream and writhe and from them come wailing two newborns, one with skin hot as fire, bright pink and lungs strong, the other cool as seawater, olive-toned and calm.

The nurses overseeing the births swear up-and-down black-and-blue that the two babies are born with stardust under their skin, something otherworldly about them. Nothing comes of their whispers, but the mothers take note, take stock and remember. 

They meet as they leave the hospital, children swaddled in blankets, wide eyes blue-gold and silver finding the other as though they’d known where they were the whole time. The mothers exchange phone numbers, marvelling at the timeliness of the separate births. Their newborns never look away from the other, calm as ever, gurgling happily.

In this life, Sun and Moon grow up side-by-side, discovering all aspects of life together. They are rarely apart and they don’t so much fall in love as discover the age-old passion hidden under skin and in bone. 

In this life, they make sure they are never needlessly apart. In this life, nothing goes wrong. In this life, they are endlessly happy and from return-to-Earth and return-to-Sky they are as one.

*

**End.**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yahoooooooooooo

**Author's Note:**

> yea so. i let this sit in my docs for too long i don't know what to say except *opens hands in offering* i hope you enjoyed it?
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at [buckyskillingme](http://buckyskillingme.tumblr.com)
> 
> you can find the amazing flightyrock on tumblr at [flightyrock](http://flightyrock.tumblr.com)


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